Best quality MPEG2 Encoder

[xphiles666]

I'm using CCE or TMPGEnc to encode from PAL DV to DVD MPEG2 and the result is good, but when you pause the movie, for example during a motion scene, you can see evident compression artifacts. There a way to optain something similar to DVD Movie, where also on very complicated scene if you pause you doesn't see any corruption.
It's only a problem of settings? How can obtain the best quality, I don't care about time taken to encode.

Which is the best MPEG encoder to do so? I read the Heuris MPEG Power Professional manual and it seems very good

[mb1]

Tmpeg is the best for DV. Second is CCE. Third is Ligos. Others are way back, especially Heuris.

DV needs very high bitrates, so best would be to raise up your bitrate.
Also in Tmpeg only do "highest quality motion search" for superior quality. High will give you similar quality than CCE.
And do use improved matrices. Best one for DV is:

mb1 interlaced DV

_8,13,13,17,17,21,21,28,
13,13,17,17,19,21,23,30,
13,17,19,19,21,23,28,34,
13,17,19,19,21,23,28,48,
17,19,19,19,23,28,34,48,
19,19,23,25,28,32,34,48,
19,21,23,25,28,32,34,48,
21,21,25,25,28,32,34,48

_8,11,11,15,15,17,17,24,
11,11,15,15,17,17,21,24,
13,15,15,17,21,21,26,34,
13,17,15,17,21,21,26,48,
17,21,21,23,21,30,34,48,
17,21,21,23,28,30,34,48,
19,19,25,26,28,30,48,48,
19,19,25,26,28,30,48,48

regards
mb1

[xphiles666]

Thank You very much for your explaination. So TMPGEnc is better than CCE? Have you any suggestion for setting up CCE?

[mb1]

Tmpeg gives sharper pictures whereas CCE smoothes very strong.
It´s your decision what you prefer.

CCE settings differ in newer versions than 2.50sp ...
From 2.62sp on you can change matrices (there are workarounds for 250sp too) and especially for DV material the above matrix is recommended (but that needs higher bitrates than svcd).

Also DV material is interlaced with bff (don´t waste time with progressive DV recording as it gives jumpier motions; don´t deinterlace if you watch your results on a tv-set; deinterlacing always is quality loss) so in the video tab it is best to uncheck all settings.
CCE always sets tff-flag (no matter what you select) so normally you have to change that flag afterwards (f.e. easy changer from dv-mpeg).
GOP should be 3/4 and in the quality settings should be image quality around 5-10 and no anti noise filter (as it produces ghosts with interlaced material).

Bitrate should be as high as your standalone allows (good quality at svcd resolutions beginning over 4.000 max).
Always do Multipass. Not higher than 1-3 (more passes than 3 decrease image quality).

And if you have the knowledge then always do tv overscan and macroblock optimizations (use FitCD and avisynth) to get higher bitrates per block ...

regards
mb1

[vcd2002a]

I think a lot of people will argue about which is better, CCE or TMPGenc. It is also true that people knowing the truth don't bother to type messages any more. I suggest the follow URLs for you to get some insights:

http://www.vcdhelp.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=91467&highlight=

http://www.doom9.org/mpg/cce-advanced.htm